Is East Chicago the Next Flint?

Demetra Turner and her family moved into the West Calumet Public Housing Complex in East Chicago, Indiana in May 2016. A month later, she found out she would have to evacuate her new home due to extremely elevated levels of lead and arsenic in the soil and water. It turned out the public housing complex was sitting on top of a Superfund site, one of the most toxic in the country. East Chicago is one of many low-income, majority black communities that disproportionately suffer from environmental harm across the country. “We’re going through the same thing Flint went through – neglect,” says resident and activist Sherry Hunter. “And it all has to do with poor black people.”